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Bagpipes and Immigration

At the start of this blog I mentioned that Nova Scotia, if it was true to its Scottish roots, would mean rain, midges and bagpipes. We had rain, although it is now warm and sunny, on one occasion we were attacked by a swarm of killer midges and today “Full House”, we walked up to the Citadel, a huge British fort overlooking Halifax to be confronted by bagpipes. We beat a hasty retreat.

We have been a little disappointed about the amount of detail the museums we have visited provide, they are big on re-enactments but low on information especially if it was contentious or likely to offend. This was not the case at today’s excellent museum called Pier 21 where immigrants were processed on arrival to Canada.

Canada was institutionally racist for many years, the First Nation People (Indians when I was at school), the Acadians (French), black ex slaves, and Chinese many of whom were second or third generation Canadians.

There were race riots and attacks on anyone who was not of white European stock. Before 1939 100,000 English children aged between 10 and 14 were sent over from Dr Barnardo's homes a to work in the fields.

The comment at the top of the page is from one unfortunate child.

A comment from a Danish immigrant: “Our greatest disappointment was with the mustard, which looked exactly like European mustard, but which was probably the worst brand of mustard that we ever encountered. In fact, we were totally baffled by its taste and consistency, and the beastly stuff certainly didn’t go with the wieners either.
As we were later to discover, that was our first introduction to peanut butter.”

The museum told the story warts and all, many immigrants settled in and regard coming to Canada as the best thing they ever did and in recent years many refuges have found a safe home here but it is good that the museum was honest about the past, an excellent few hours.

The picture below is taken close to our B&B, tomorrow we might do the maritime museum so stand by for some nautical tales.